


Thine Own Self

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s08e01 Deep Breath, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3136742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"You realise, of course - one of us is lying about his basic programming."</i> - A double drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thine Own Self

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philomytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/gifts).



Rule one: The Doctor lies.

Of course his basic programming doesn't forbid murder. All it forbids is approving of murder, even when he himself commits it.

The Doctor looks down after the falling body.

Liars, both of them.

What is kinder: pushing someone to his death, or convincing him to take the fall? Either way, no self-delusion: it was always going to end in death. Droid or not, many-times-repaired and regenerated or not: they've looked each other in the face; the Doctor has met the eyes of the man - yes: man, no matter what else he was - whose death he meant to cause.

It's the Doctor's salvation, perhaps, that the Half-Face Man had wanted an ending almost as much as the Doctor had.

Endings. _The promised land ..._

Even half-faced men must believe in something to justify themselves. Even men with faces not their own, whose self has been rewritten too many times, must look to _something_ if they're to go on.

Now that the Half-Face Man is dead, the control node destroyed, the droids will prey on people no longer. Clara and Vastra and the others will be safe.

For now.

The Doctor looks up. It's time to go back.


End file.
